Fraud report boldly repeats what's been said before

HOME Affairs Minister Jason Clare might want to pop into a few more Senate hearings or read a newspaper before he trots out reports from the Australian Crime Commission on cyber and investment fraud.

Clare yesterday launched ''the first unclassified report of its kind'' from the ACC, citing the revelation that 2600 Australians may have lost $113 million to serious and organised investment fraud.

Only trouble is, Insider's sister publication The Australian Financial Review reported those same numbers back in May from statements by ACC chief executive John Lawler before a Senate committee.

While Insider can only applaud any regulatory action that limits the capacity of the unscrupulous to separate the gullible from their money, the 43-page report is almost a scam in itself.

No wonder it is not classified - it contains nothing particularly revelatory, and appears to be largely a Google-fuelled, cobble-together of local and international analysis of what is happening in computer-based investment fraud.

The notable absence was the usual brag statistics from enforcers - details of how much money they saved and how many criminals they brought to justice.

Hopefully, the much-touted, multiagency Task Force Galilee, put together about 15 months ago and co-ordinated by the ACC, is achieving a lot more than profiling the likely victims of such scams.

Presumably some of the more recent announcements from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission about shutting down a handful of such cold-calling enterprises are an out-working of the Galilee operation.

After all, it has a most impressive set of acronymed organisations and departments behind it - ASIC, ACCC, AUSTRAC, ACMA, AGD, DIAC, ATO, ACBPS, DHS and DBCDE. OMG!

Then again, in Insider's experience the authorities are almost incapable of helping themselves to any kudos in these matters, or even accelerating the learning of the wider community, because they steadfastly decline to discuss detail - let alone hint that miscreants might be about to appear in a courtroom.

Task Force Galilee's primary objectives are prevention and disruption of criminal activities, and to find ways of ensuring the community can spot a scam before the money evaporates.

Insider thinks though that the constabulary's propensity for ensuring it gets convictions, and preferring that no one notices when it fails, creates an environment of secrecy that favours the dodgy.

With much of the hard data in yesterday's report apparently sourced from the US and the London, Insider can only wonder whether making it public - and the planned mailout to all Australian households over the next couple of months - is a recognition that the local authorities are having trouble coming to grips with their targets.

Dulux's rising tide

ACCEPTANCES for Dulux Group's $2 a share bid for the garage door maker Alesco Corporation may not be flooding in as yet, but the water level is rising.

Most of its gains are coming from what is known as an institutional acceptance facility (IAF), where it now has an entitlement to 4.1 per cent of Alesco.

An IAF allows professional investors to indicate their intention to accept a takeover offer, without handing over control of their stock. That means they can still do things like lend the shares and collect a fee.

That is unlike retail investors who sign the paper and then lose the ability to deal in their shares unless conditions change.

Bidders love IAFs, as do shareholder service companies such as Computershare that collect fees for running them because it bolsters their acceptances and helps line up recalcitrant investors.

Dulux's ''real'' acceptances for its offer are now about 3.1 per cent (remembering it started the game with 19.9 per cent), bringing its total claimed stake to 26.2 per cent of Alesco in a week when it has to decide whether to extend the offer beyond its July 20 closing date.

Kennett's sacrifice

JEFFREY Gibb Kennett and fellow directors at Equity Trustees are sacrificing more than a little of their salary in taking up the company's stock in recent times.

The former premier is one of the board members taking advantage, on a quarterly basis, of the $5000 a year salary sacrifice allowed to take up additional shares.

Equity Trustees' share price fall from $14 a year ago to near $11 now has meant that Kennett and colleagues are getting more shares for their dollars. For example, this time last year, Kennett's investment was worth $223,011, but based on the latest $11.30 issue price his investment is now valued at only $203,038 - and that is even with 1666 additional shares.

With total directors' fees for non-executive directors like Kennett running at about $70,000 a year, that is a fair amount of money sacrificed.